


My Fault

by whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp



Series: Shorts/One Shots [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood, Coming Out, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, John in Afghanistan, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV John Watson, Parents, Pining, so there is death, theyre not even characters really but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:39:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp/pseuds/whatdoyoumeanionlygetoneotp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>just a long john hc tbh but the 'this is my fault' lines in hlv get to me and this happened</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Fault

Growing up he doesn't hear it much. He's the eldest child, the perfect first child. He doesn't get into trouble. Then they start fighting, his parents. He starts getting in the way. When they shout he'll leave the room, race Harry out of it, but he's never quite quick enough. Sometimes they catch him hovering behind the door-frame and sigh or roll their eyes. They don't fight all the time, but when they do it's about 'the children'. He liked it better when they weren't. He wanders what it is that's making them cross so he can stop doing it. They keep going. 

 

 

When Harry starts sneaking out of school and getting bad reports he somehow feels guilty not smug. Mum and dad aren't happy with her and he worries somehow he set the bar too high. They never shout at him about school. Harry sees the difference, says it bitingly through tears she won't admit to as they're halfway up the stairs - ‘they never shout at you.’ Maybe it's his fault for giving them expectations.

He goes to practice and studies and when he goes out it’s with people his parents deem "healthy". Harry goes out a lot, more than he does, and drinks a lot too, more than any of them do. He tells her it’s not good for her, and that she’s barely fifteen, which probably does the oposite of helping. She never listened to him. He shouldn’t have tried - it just makes her worse.

 

 

She comes out. Their parents aren't extremists or religious but they're still upset. They shout again, a proper wet storm of a session of shouting. Mum’s worried and cries half the night, in the kitchen, the living room, into her pillow so its muffled through his and Harry's wall. Dad struggles to keep from properly boiling over. They think she's making it up. They think no one will accept her and are unwilling to be the first ones. Later, up the stairs again, she pushes John against his bedroom door in a fit of angry tears.

‘This is your fault,’ she tells him, ‘can't you just stick up for me for once? Take some of it for once? If you told them you are too they might let it go...’

‘I'm not...’ he tries, but he doesn't push against her. She’s right: he should be on her side. They’d stop if he was on her side. She’s right: it’s his fault.

 

 

After the glory days of O Levels he has a slump. Maybe his heart’s not in it anymore now that there’s so much more drama at home. Maybe it’s just too hard: he’s hit his peak already. More likely the teachers are right and he’s just not trying hard enough. Now mum and dad shout at him about school. They expect better, of course they do. He worries he can’t give it to them, and can’t help a little guilt despite knowing they’re being unreasonable. It’s only because they want him to be happy, want him being his best at the best school they can afford. But he can’t do it. He’s not good enough to do it. At least Harry is happier now with a bit of respite.

He ends up passing with flying colours and runs off to Barts as fast as possible on a wave of praise (from others) and relief (from himself) that he knows will only make it worse for Harry. But what can he do? Fail on purpose? It’s not his fault. Surely...

 

 

He gets a girl first week of Freshers and though, yes, they met at _Freshers,_ he does really like her. She leaves him, eventually, saying he never made time for her. Mike smiles sympathetically, buys him a drink, calls her overly demanding. John shrugs: she was right, he never did make time for her. ‘Yeah’, he says, ‘she was crazy.’

 

 

Holidays are interesting. He wants to help Harry out, but it's Christmas and there's champagne and brandy for the pudding and red wine that isn't from some shitty half-price carton...

She was doing so well, Clara shouts back at him as she half carries her drunken girlfriend to the car, way to set an example.

 

 

The first time he kisses a boy he’s almost blind drunk. He’d have to be, to be honest. He tries not to think about how much he resembles Harry as he wakes up the next morning with a hangover that feels like Atlas' weight. His mates think it’s hilarious (he’s not out to them, and probably never will be, coward that he is), and it takes a lot of joking coupled with desperate grabs to get them to delete the photos.

‘What was I meant to do?’ he asks them, with a laugh that doesn't reach his eyes, ‘he came at me.’

‘Yeah,’ one of them says, ‘and he wouldn't have done if you weren't so bloody wasted.’

 

 

The second boy is on the second continent, a few thousand miles from home, so much easier to give in to. He has a foreign, flirty smile and a voice that’s gruff and lower than you’d think to look at him. ‘This is your fault,’ he hisses, chuckles, breath tacky sweet, as he pushes, rubs, ruts up against John’s thigh. ‘Can you feel just what you’ve done to me? This is all your fault...’

 

 

He manages a 2:1. Which is pretty brilliant. Harry sneers and bites back sarcasm as she snaps the cliche pictures and shakes them out. He doesn’t mind, or he pretends not to. She’s got it pretty rough at the moment. He knows she doesn't really mean it. Still, though, she probably didn't have to scowl quite so darkly at mum ruffling his hair. 

 

 

Years later he feels like complaining again. About Harry, about his mundane life. But he won’t - because she's divorced and in a bloody rehab centre, because mum and dad are dead and he should be glad to even be alive right now, to be healthy. Then the news comes about Afghanistan, and he feels the hum he hasn’t felt in eons. Signing up is the right descision, he thinks. He tells Harry, but only because she’ll have a fit if she finds out later. She yells at him down the phone: ‘you know they’re dead? You don’t have to be their fucking golden boy any more, you don’t have to do what they’d want.’

‘This is what _I_   want...’

‘No it’s not, you just always want to help.’

‘Maybe I do. Why shouldn’t I?’

‘You’re shit at helping,’ she tells him. ‘Don’t come crying to me if you get shot. It’s your own fault.’

 

 

People do get shot; he doesn’t. Not yet. He helps, and for a period he thinks he’s good at helping. Then people start dying. Someone dies because he’s not quick enough. Another because he can’t multi-task well enough. The only thing that helps is the fact he has steady hands, steadier than the other doctors who haven’t adapted so well to working like this. The lads say he’s helping, they all seem to think he’s brilliant - definitely the best doctor they’ve ever had, they all say. He guesses they sort of have to say that, him being the captain and all.

 

 

The third boy is a messy fumble in the sand that ends as badly as it inevitabley has to. Turns out he had someone at home. John hears them fighting over the phone, hovers in the doorway like he’s still eight years old. All that’s missing is a sleeping blanket balled up in his fist. This is his fault too, really. He should have asked. He shouldn’t have brought drinks.

 

 

James asks him, just the once: ‘why do you always think everything’s your fault?’

‘I don’t,’ he says, taken aback, ‘when did I say that?’

‘You didn’t, but I know you do. Who told you that?’

‘No one told me that...’ but thinking about it he can name a few. He hadn’t realised it was getting to him. If indeed it is, maybe he just made it up. 

James is looking at him with that look that always makes him think _maybe_  - eyes widened and softer than usual. He sighs a little, looks at the floor. ‘John, not everything is your fault.’

‘I know that.’

‘You don’t...’

‘Fine,’ John says firmly, ‘not everything is my fault.’

For a second he believes it.

 

 

Someone dies because he wasn’t quick enough. He should have been quick enough.

 

 

Sherlock is brilliant. Fascinating, insane, charming and surprisingly funny. He’s stupidly attractive too, with his enigmatic Byronic smugness that only gives way to four-chinned giggles and simple selflessness. If John could get away with it he’d be kissing that stupid smile up against every surface for the majority of the working day. But what kind of fool would he be to risk the best relationship he’s ever had just for the chance of changing it a bit? Sex and an even smaller distance between them on the sofa isn’t worth it, he decides. He doesn’t think he could take being to blame for losing this. He won’t mess this one up. This one won’t be his fault.

 

 

But Sherlock falls. And he should have been there quicker, should have run up to the roof, should have said more on the phone, should have called for help, should have been better, should have tried harder, should have. The "should have"s and "could have"s and "maybe"s keep him up all night with cold bare feet. Maybe he should have tried after all, should have said...

He never could have said. What’s he talking about? He never would have said. Maybe he should have... Coward.

 

 

‘I thought you might say something indescreet...’ Sherlock is saying, back, fine, alive and well, indecently so, and John wants to scream. He almost does. Mary says he does.

‘Oh, so this is my fault?!’

Of course it is, he’s thinking as she throws her head back in exasperation, of course it is, it always is. He’s only ever resented the world more a few times.

 

 

The marriage should have worked better. He should have made more of an effort. He should have chosen better. Of course. Of fucking course. She’s the liar in this room, they both are, and yet he’s the one they’re telling has made yet another stupid mistake. A stupid mistake that nearly killed... One time, there couldn’t have just been one time he got it right, could there? 

‘She wasn’t supposed to be like that...’ he tries. He’d really been trying. She’d picked up the pieces. He’d thought for once, just for the one time, he might have gotten something right with no consequences. ‘Why is she like that?’ He knows what the answer is and thinks he might lose it if he hears it.

‘Because you chose her...’ 

His hand flexes. Jesus. ‘Why is everything... always... my fault?!’ He sends a chair crashing to the carpet; it’s not nearly as satisfying as it should have been. He sounds angrier than he thought he would, considering his voice is as close to breaking as he is. Maybe they can sort this out. Maybe. But he knows _he_ can’t.

 

_Why is everything always my fault?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> someone pls tell my son things arent his fault.................


End file.
